Adoption Racism?

Discussion Open Forum
41

Quentin,

I think our past interactions are affecting your ability to read what I wrote. I’m not taking a bashing America position or making a comment about racism.

I became a privilege individual in American society, because America is a meritocracy. It means I had to earn it. So there is no point in being grateful because a vast majority of the world is also meritocracy. It is really the US that should be grateful I’m still around paying taxes, is the way I see it. :laughing:

Because the world is full of stupid people that think this way. So the few of us enlighten ones can take two paths. Become a hermit and laugh at the stupid people. Or become sociable, manipulate the stupid people to ensures one’s popularity, while reaping the benefits, and most importantly laugh at the stupid people.

People are image conscious. It’s part of being human. People care about what other people think about them. It’s part of everyones identity. Even claiming not to care about this, is to some extent caring about this. Very zen like.

But was he Black or Asian or something on the fringes of what a European or Middle Eastern Jew looks like. The guy is not going to take his parents to work when he becomes an adult. As long as he “looks” Jewish when he is an adult, I don’t see any form of extra stress that an East Asian claiming to be Jewish would be getting as an adult.

I’m not saying people should conform to negative stereotypes. But there are positive images that people need to conform to if they wish to be precieved as productive adults.

The major issue for some individuals is that they will need to spend so much extra effort in solidifying their identity. That they fall behind others in hitting their milestones in life. Take for examples the gay communities in the USA. A lot of maladjusted individuals in that community…

I’m not saying teaching Chinese to Chinese adoptees will solve all their identity issues when they reach adulthood. But it will be a tool to help them discover themselves more easily.

42

I suspect that they did introduce you to your heritage, whether you’re aware of it or not. I suspect that you received cultural immersion; seems unfair to criticize parents for offering the same opportunity to their [adoptive] children.

No, it certainly shouldn’t be a precondition for adoption. There are many more important factors, such as “are the adoptive parents likely to provide a healthy, stable, loving environment?” But along with providing the child with good opportunities for sports, music, education, friends, intellectual growth, recreation, etc., it seems logical that one positive experience they can offer the child is the opportunity to learn about, and visit, the culture where he/she and his/her ancestors came from, if the child is interested in that, which I would expect most would be at some point.

That’s right. I’m just thinking that ethnicity/race is not important.[/quote]

I strongly disagree. Do you really believe a black kid growing up in a white family, no matter how much he might feel loved and wanted and a part of the family, wouldn’t be likely at some point to find it very important to get in touch with his black ancestory, culture, heritage, etc.?

If ethnicity/race aren’t important, why do so many who were born in America and whose parents were born in America still refer to themselves as Italian-American or Irish-American or Mexican-American or African-American or Asian-American?

As I said, I’m very proud of my family heritage. I suspect most people are the same, or at least it’s important for people to be aware of their family heritage to have a better feel for who they are, where they come from, and where they are going in life. I believe ethnicity/race is very important.

Again, I disagree. It’s not racism. It’s not guilt. It’s only the other thing you mentioned – a fundamental desire to do the right thing, to offer the child an opportunity to learn about his heritage, his ancestry, where he came from, and to therefore have a better understanding of who he is, which is a fundamental human need.

43

I suspect that they did introduce you to your heritage, whether you’re aware of it or not. I suspect that you received cultural immersion; seems unfair to criticize parents for offering the same opportunity to their [adoptive] children.[/quote]Nope. I grew up with a taste for German food, and in a German church, but that’s it. I’m not criticizing these parents, I just don’t see that it’s necessary. If they want to open new vistas to their children, good for them. But I don’t think it’s necessary.

44

Why the ancestor worship? I’ve visited England but I didn’t go rooting around for my long lost kin. Who cares? Or does is matter more because “the kids looks like them?”

If we can so easliy dismiss skin color as not a reasonable way to classify people, then we can certainly do the same thing to culture.

The strongest cultural unit is the family (as long as one does not live in a sureal totalitarian government like North Korea). The family culture is the environment that the kid is raised in, not some shortbus racial/ethnic/cultural definition of culture.

Why is it a positive thing to reinforce ethnic and racial stereotypes/culture? God forbid you were adopted from an Amazon conedick tribe. “Let’s go Freddy! Get your conedick on! It’s time for the cultural party! Susie has her lips all flapped out with copper plates. You gotta see this!”

My kid talks like me, walks like me, and that’s all there is to that. I didn’t do anything but love him.

45

And many of them might not ever until they themselves consider themselves “full” Americans.

Anyway, you say that we should conform to mainstream expectations and that as such any ethnic Chinese person living in the US should be taught to speak Chinese, as the mainstream expectation is that such individuals should be able to speak Chinese. I don’t accept that notion as accurately reflective of reality… but, I’ll play along and pose this question to you:

My boy is part ethnic Chinese. He has grown up in Taiwan and attended Taiwanese schools. He speaks Mandarin like any kid born here of and raised by two Taiwanese parents. Yet, in our experience, in excess of 80% of Taiwanese people we encounter express shock and astonishment that my boy is fluiently conversant in and can read and write Chinese. Bowing to what appear to be mainstream expectations in Taiwan, should I have kept my boy out of local schools so that his language proficiency conformed with local mainstream expectations?[/quote]
But in this example the child is not adopted. He is no different than the Black mission family children that grow up Chinese.

It would not be racist to teach your son English. So don’t let that hold you back… :laughing:

The question is not about Chinese astonishment that the Euroasian speaks Chinese. Nor about the Asian American, Jin, that can rap and battle with Blacks.

The question of this thread is would it be in the best interest of your son not to teach him English in order for him to “love Taiwan” more and go through localization form of Sinification. It seems quite obvious to me if your son wishes to explorer his American identity more it would be best done while being fluent and literate in English. If he spends his life in Taiwan and east Asia, he might never be considered “American” by anyone in the Mainland (lower 48 states), because of the cultural gap he’ll obviously have. But at least he’ll have to tools to discover those differences on his own, when he interacts with Americans oversea or in America, and gain the confidence in his own identity, because those conclusions were made on his own.

Edit:

Not knowing how observant you are nor whether your wife converted. If Taiwan had a Hebrew school, I wouldn’t consider it racist if you wanted to send your kid there either. Or celebrated a half-baked version of high holidays in Taiwan.

46

If the situations were reversed with Chinese people adopting American kids… I believe that they wouldn’t teach the kid about American values or whatever. (Actually they would, they’d teach the kid that all Americans eat McDonalds) My understanding of the culture we are in (as outsiders) we are kind of adopted into our Taiwanese spouses family anyway. How many of us had to go through a fully Taiwanese wedding without any nods back to our home culture(s)? In some ways we are expected to be “foreigners but really they are Chinese”.

So I my take on it, like others here, is its a case of middle class guilt.

47

Why the ancestor worship? I’ve visited England but I didn’t go rooting around for my long lost kin. Who cares?

snip

The strongest cultural unit is the family . . . The family culture is the environment that the kid is raised in, not some shortbus racial/ethnic/cultural definition of culture.[/quote]

Easy for you to say. You weren’t plucked from your family and deposited on the other side of the world. I assume you were raised by your biological family surrounded by family, friends and relatives who grew up in roughly the same culture, with roughly comparable experiences.

If you had been adopted by a black family in Nigeria as an infant, no matter how much you loved that family and considered Nigeria to be your home and Nigerian culture to be your native culture, do you really believe you wouldn’t at some point be curious to learn about who your biological parents were and where they came from and what kind of a world they lived in? Why should it be different for a child snatched from China and deposited in the US with a white family?

48

[quote][quote=“Mother Theresa”]
Easy for you to say. You weren’t plucked from your family and deposited on the other side of the world. I assume you were raised by your biological family surrounded by family, friends and relatives who grew up in roughly the same culture, with roughly comparable experiences. [/quote]

You wrongly assume such things. I was raised in a bunch of different foster homes, differing in income, employment, political persuasion, religious persuasions, and had vastly different parenting methods. When they removed me from my family, it felt like I was on the other side of the world, because I was isolated from everything I had ever known. Why does that matter if the foster parents were black or Chinese or conedicks?

Can’t you see that “culture” is just one more stupid human-imposed form of slavery, up there with religion and race?

Sure, but that’s not the point is it? Does EVERY adopted kid go thorugh this? No. Why should parents be expected to supply ethnic diversity in their parenting? How does that make the child a better person? It would seem to alienate the kid from his parents.

I wouldn’t do it. However, if the kid showed an interest in where he came from, I start with a map. And then I’d explain how bloody hard it was to get him, but that I did get him because I loved him even before I saw him.

And what, now based on HGC’s post we are to assume that every Chinese baby adopted has been “snatched?”

49

Hey it could happen.

“Waddya mean I’m not black?”

Whoa! I said there is a vast problem in China concerning the trade in stolen children, that doesn’t by any means make all kiddies stolen.

Here’s a Washington Post article about it, however it is misleading, as China has had a serious problem with the stealing and trafficking of people, especially from the hinterland, long before westerners were allowed in. And to be fair, it is one area of China’s legal environment they have acted on fairly well.

[quote]Stealing Babies for Adoption
With U.S. Couples Eager to Adopt, Some Infants Are Abducted and Sold in China
. . .
The prevalence of the problem has become clearer in recent weeks with the prosecution of a child-trafficking ring in the neighboring province of Hunan. Last November, police arrested 27 members of a ring that since 2002 had abducted or purchased as many as 1,000 children here in Guangdong province and sold them to orphanages in Hunan for $400 to $538, according to reports in Chinese state media and interviews with sources familiar with the case, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because provincial officials have ordered a media blackout. The orphanages placed most of those children in homes with unwitting foreign families, many of them Americans, in exchange for mandatory contributions of $3,000 per baby – a sum nearly twice the average annual Chinese income – according to sources familiar with the prosecution.

Last month, a court in Hunan sentenced three of those baby traffickers to 15 years in prison and imposed terms of three to 13 years on six others, the official New China News Agency reported. Twenty-three local government officials in Hengyang, the city at the center of the case, have been fired. Attorneys for those sentenced said the babies involved were abandoned and then sold to orphanages, but not abducted. They plan appeals.[/quote]

HG

50

[quote]http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/us/20adopt.html?ex=1184212800&en=5550868f74f2d73c&ei=5070

China plans to tighten rules on foreign adoptions, barring people who are single, obese, older than 50 or who fail to meet certain benchmarks in financial, physical or psychological health from adopting Chinese children, according to adoption agencies in the United States.[/quote]
Looks like China is become quite particular about foreigners that will be allow to adopt. No more poor, stupid, ugly, old, gay, or fat people allow to adopt in China anymore.

When did foreigners forget how to make babies? :laughing:

A neocons wet dream the PRC is becoming. Only the rich, slim, straight, beautiful people are allow to adopt Chinese babies now.

51

  1. Look what happened to Thydrail. He eats babies. Can’t get more screwed up than that. /sarcasm.

  2. I love dried seaweed. More people should be eating that stuff, but I hate those little individual plastic wrappers. What a waste.

  3. I know quite a few Asian adopted children in America (of various ages) and the parents who adopted them. My take from my experiences with these people is:

  • The child is physically different in features from the parents. Kids know this from an early age, and will start asking. The parents participate in these activities in order to help the child retain its heritage/link, and for the parents to learn more about where the child came from. I don’t know that it’s necessarily guilt. But in a global community, I applaud these efforts. I think it’s better for the child to have that opportunity than not. Another motivation is that the parents like multiculturalism. They want the child to be American and much more. They recognize that a person should have broader horizons. There are “natural” links to China, so why not make use of it. Some of them will have the child learn French too.

  • My friend, a girl about my age, was adopted and grew up in Wisconsin. As “american” as pie and all that. But she told me she always thought it would have been nice to learn Chinese language. She married my white American classmate. They intend to teach their child Chinese. He thinks it’s stupid not to.

  • Some see this as a psychological aid. Talking with others who’ve raised Chinese kids, they believe that the kid, being physically different, will always feel different in some way, so embracing that heritage together, parents and child, seems to help bring the family closer together. At least that’s the way they see it. Guilt? I dunno. Maybe it’s just love.

52

I’m reading this thread and trying to figure out where racism plays in all this. If anything, I think it’s a bit racist that Chinese children are “popular” or a preferred race to adopt to begin with.

I agree with other posts who have stated that Asians who are adopted have identity issues that need to be address [sic]. And I mean that in a healthy way.

53

I agree, if it was me I’d be looking for a Vietnamese, at least they do their homework.

HG

54

JD, to be honest, that kind of comment only serves to highlight a problem in your own thinking.

If a black child was adopted by white parents then obviously the child will take their family surname. In most cases when the child went to school this would not raise any eyebrows as the name would not stand out in anyway, assuming it was a reasonably standard family name ie not germanic, russian or italian type thing in it’s own origin. Unless the child’s parent were seen with the child no one would ever be the wiser. Yes the child would be subject to whatever taunts may be common place at the that time and location based on his colour, but that is all.

Now consider the same for an ethnically chinese child. As soon as the child goes to school, the child is seen as different, based purely on name and looks. How many chinese looking kids do you know in the US that have a common white american name. Children are generally some of the cruellest people around, they may not go around murdering people, but their actions can have very long lasting impacts.

The main task of a parent is to ensure that the child grows up in a loving and stable environment that gives the child as much as possible for its own growth and eventual integration into the workforce. To my thinking, and i aint saying it is 100% correct, this means making the child fully aware of its roots, and actively encouraging the child to do whatever the child feels is necessary, whether that means learning the language etc, or just going once to visit the area where the child originally came form. Each child is different, and has slightly differnet requirements from the previous child.

As far as i remember, you like both myself and TM have a child here with a local wife. I honestly think that by initially raising them here in local schools as TM and myself are doing, we give them the best of both worlds. They grow up with the ability to read, write and speak principally Mandarin, but i woulkd expect with a good smattering of Taiwanese thrown in as well. Because of our backgrounds, they also grow up able to communicate in English, maybe not quite to the same level as a child of the same age say back in the US, but still more than capapble of functioning in that language. This will give a big advantage when it comes to finding a job, especially if the current expansion of China economically continues, they will be one the few that can really bridge that gap.

All to often, i have seen real chinese kids whether in US, UK or other areas where they may be able to speak Mandarin, though also often they can only speak the dialect of their parents, but they are not able to read and write, so they actually loose the biggest potential advantage that they might have had.

If the main tak of a parent is only to provide a loving and stable environment for the child to grow up in, then i might be prepared to accept your viewpoint, but surely as parents are role is to provide not only a loving and stable environment, but also to give our child the best possible start in life that leads to them exploiting their potential to the full when it comes time to start working and forming a career.

55

I’m not in any way implying that children should not be exposed to other cultures… I agree that if children show an interest in a different culture they should be encouraged to explore the same. My wife and I have made certain that our boy is exposed to both Chinese and US cultures, as well as European cultures. My boy is 14 years old and I’ve taken him to Europe twice and in Taiwan, the only tutor he had for language was an English gal who taught him about the American revolution from the British perspective. Its all good, IMO.

But, that isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about white American adoptive parents who feel a need to immerse their adopted Chinese children in Chinese culture in order to maintain some tie with their “heritage”. They do this even though the child has no connection with China or Chinese culture, having left China in the care of white Americans from Iowa while they were infants. The only “connection” with China is their ethnicity. I am saying that ethnicity is not important… at least it isn’t important to me…

I understand well that some people from outside the famly and from societies will hold some expectations regarding any child/person based on that person’s ethnicity or race. I think such expectations are racist. Isn’t that the defiinition of “racism”? I think that the willingness to pander to these racial expectations only perpetuates such racist beliefs. I haven’t indicated whether I believe this is a good or a bad thing. I’m only questioning whether this is racist… so far, I am inclined to believe that it is.

Yes. Part of my thinking hinges on the identity issue. Many have raised the point that some adopted children grow up with identity issues… this is apparently the case with many so-called “mixed race” individuals. I think (and yes, I know I could be wrong) that many of these identity issues/problems derive from attempts to fit into or belong to one group or another rather than being content that we are all unique individuals who belong to no group exclusively and who make our own way in this world based on our own selves and abilities. Sure, the world isn’t completely fair and ideal as I wish… But, I think the world would be… could be… a whole lot better a place were we to instill a sense of self in our children rather than a sense of belonging to some other group…

I dunno… I’m still turning this over in my head…

56

I agree 100% with that statement. That’s why I think its important for parents to instill as much as possible a sense of self and self worth in their children, regardless of what idiotic notions or expectations are maintained by others.

I agree. But, then, I wonder if parents who adopted a Chinese baby and immersed said baby in Chinese language and cultural traditions would have done the same had they adopted a black baby instead. My feeling is that most parents would not. And then I would ask, ‘why not’? The answer that occurs to me seems to be dependent upon race/ethnicity.

57

I’m not sure I see the “problem” in my thinking Traveller.

I also have a kid in public school here, and he attends my school in the afternoon. I’d say his English is equal to that of his cousins and friends back home, and he is fluent in Chinese and speaks taiwanese as well.

But this is all environmental. If we lived in Italy, I’d have him in Italian schools learning Italian, and he’d speak and read Chinese and English at home.

I did know two girls in High School, one black and one Korean who were adopted by white families. You couldn’t tell them apart from their white/black friends, and you wouldn’t think they didn’t belong to their families, unless you base your opinion of what a family is on race.

[quote]
If the main tak of a parent is only to provide a loving and stable environment for the child to grow up in, then I might be prepared to accept your viewpoint, but surely as parents are role is to provide not only a loving and stable environment, but also to give our child the best possible start in life that leads to them exploiting their potential to the full when it comes time to start working and forming a career.[/quote]
Giving a child the best possible start has more to do with teaching him or her to think independently and to be curious and question authority, as well as starting them on skills that will help them achieve the Simpsonian dream of “outsmarting someone else” or becoming better prepared to find preferrable employment in his adult life. It has dick all to do with learning about people far away that “look like you.”

People adopt Chinese babies now because it’s easy. Just like they adopted Russian babies after the Wall came down. Because it was easy. Parents don’t want color, or culture. They want a child to love and raise in their own image, not some notion of what someone from such and such a part of the world should be.

And if the kid in question wants to know more, they should provide more. I just don’t follow the idea that it should be par for the course.

58

I’m not in any way implying that children should not be exposed to other cultures… I agree that if children show an interest in a different culture they should be encouraged to explore the same. My wife and I have made certain that our boy is exposed to both Chinese and US cultures, as well as European cultures. My boy is 14 years old and I’ve taken him to Europe twice and in Taiwan, the only tutor he had for language was an English gal who taught him about the American revolution from the British perspective. Its all good, IMO.

But, that isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about white American adoptive parents who feel a need to immerse their adopted Chinese children in Chinese culture in order to maintain some tie with their “heritage”. They do this even though the child has no connection with China or Chinese culture, having left China in the care of white Americans from Iowa while they were infants. The only “connection” with China is their ethnicity. I am saying that ethnicity is not important… at least it isn’t important to me…

I understand well that some people from outside the famly and from societies will hold some expectations regarding any child/person based on that person’s ethnicity or race. I think such expectations are racist. Isn’t that the defiinition of “racism”? I think that the willingness to pander to these racial expectations only perpetuates such racist beliefs. I haven’t indicated whether I believe this is a good or a bad thing. I’m only questioning whether this is racist… so far, I am inclined to believe that it is.

Yes. Part of my thinking hinges on the identity issue. Many have raised the point that some adopted children grow up with identity issues… this is apparently the case with many so-called “mixed race” individuals. I think (and yes, I know I could be wrong) that many of these identity issues/problems derive from attempts to fit into or belong to one group or another rather than being content that we are all unique individuals who belong to no group exclusively and who make our own way in this world based on our own selves and abilities. Sure, the world isn’t completely fair and ideal as I wish… But, I think the world would be… could be… a whole lot better a place were we to instill a sense of self in our children rather than a sense of belonging to some other group…

I dunno… I’m still turning this over in my head…[/quote]

You say that the only connection is their ethnicity. This links in with my second paragraph, that physically, they are different, and so coming back to the identity issue. So, in my rambling, I see it really as one issue. So I think it is what you’re talking about.

That said, I think the issues for mixed kids and adopted kids are slightly different (maybe obvious to some, but this is from personal experience with my friends of both groups).

I would say the mixed kids have a much, much better time after puberty as they go through a caterpillar to butterfly or ugly duckling to swan experience. It’s kinda like mixed black kids in America. They’re now the “cool” people in urban society, but wasn’t that way as kids (going back to the cruelty of other kids and “sameness”). You should see all my mixed friends in HK. There’s a LOT of them here. hell, you could pm if you like, and I could ask them specific questions about their childhood.

I would say it’s much, much easier for adopted girls to assimilate than it is for adopted boys.

59

I agree 100% with that statement. That’s why I think its important for parents to instill as much as possible a sense of self and self worth in their children, regardless of what idiotic notions or expectations are maintained by others.

I agree. But, then, I wonder if parents who adopted a Chinese baby and immersed said baby in Chinese language and cultural traditions would have done the same had they adopted a black baby instead. My feeling is that most parents would not. And then I would ask, ‘why not’? The answer that occurs to me seems to be dependent upon race/ethnicity.[/quote]

That’s an interesting idea. Now I wonder if there would be a difference when the parents adopts a black baby from Compton or Detroit and when the black baby is from Ghana or South Africa. If from Kenya, would they teach the kid to be a marathon runner? Is that racism?

60

Because Blacks are part of mainstream culture in the US. Remember “Different Strokes” and “Webster”…

Of course the irony of Blacks acceptance in US mainstream culture required a couple of hundred years of slavery and wiping out any trace of African culture in the US.

Not to be unfair I think the Disney Channel has a show about a foster family with kids of all races. But then again cable doesn’t have the same penetration into mainstream culture as network broadcast.

Maybe they want to emulate how Chinese parents raise their Chinese kids. Not to point to positive stereotypes. But Asians do enjoy the model minority myth and have over representation in all the top universities in the US.

Perhaps by emulating how Chinese parent in the US raise their kids they hope their adopted kids will do as well. I mean it could be an ego deflator to some parents if they have a Chinese kid and they end up as a problem child.

With “yellow fever” and the Woody Allen incident, I’m surprise foreign wives even let their husband near an asian women, let alone raise one in their own home… :laughing:

But seriously to address your question. What’s wrong with Chinese culture being promoted in the US? Whether it is a foreign couple or a Chinese couple in the USA promoting Chinese culture, isn’t the US culture suppose to absorb it anyways.